Introduction of new members (VP Cortez) Welcome new Co-Chair: Interim Provost Jennifer Summit

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1 Sustainability Committee Meeting Thursday, October 20, :00PM, ADM 460 Attendees: VP & CFO Ron Cortez, Interim Provost Jennifer Summit, Co-Chairs. Caitlin Steele, Nick Kordesch, Jill Anthes, Tom Lollini, PP&D. Megan Dobbyn (for Stephen Smith), Procurement. Andrew Lok (replacing Chris Farmer), UCorp. Rachelle Caterson, Tyler Deguerre, Students. Denise Kleinrichert COB, David Grant Smith HUM, Nancy Wilkinson, COSE, Faculty. Brian Stuart, SAEM. Michael Yang, Amir Sahit, Associated Students. Nancy Ganner, Staff, A&F MEETING MINUTES: Introduction of new members (VP Cortez) Welcome new Co-Chair: Interim Provost Jennifer Summit UPDATES: Energy Information System (Caitlin Steele) Chancellor s Office recently hosted Facilities management conference where they announced new energy maintenance information system SF State receiving proposal from four companies. EcoVox is successful at CSU Dominguez Hills, which is most affordable. Easy to switch if it doesn t work out We currently collect paper invoices and maintain multiple spreadsheets. New software will consolidate all utility invoices and help track trends, usage, peak rates, energy dashboard, etc. Ethics Week for the College of Business (Denise Kleinrichert) 11 th annual Business Ethics Week coming up Focus this year is businesses that affect positive change socially, environmentally and economically, such as Clorox and Kaiser, who also helped with funding for initiatives and scholarships. Event is open to everyone. Details in Campus Memo. JUST Program (Jill Anthes) JUST is a new self-assessment tool that measures the social, environmental and economic equity on our campus. 1

2 While we often focus on waste and energy, we don t often focus on ethics and how we are performing in this category, and what we can do to strengthen our core values. We could be the first university to go through JUST, and it aligns with our SF State five core values and with AASHE STARS program. Architecture Net Zero contest (Jill Anthes) We re hosting an int l design competition for a building and site plan to include student housing, child care and parking. Competition was held previously at UCSF and UC Merced, sponsored by PG&E, offering $25K in prizes We received 543 entities from over 40 countries. Turnout was great for first year on our campus. Jury on campus end of November. Prizes be awarded by VPs and Pres Wong. Awards on December 1 st and 2 nd in the library STARS Progress Nick introduced Rachelle Caterson, student assistant at the Office of Sustainability since summer, Urban Planning major, helping collect data for the STARS application. STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System) is a transparent, selfreporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance, offered by AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education). We re aiming for STARS Silver status and we re a few points away. However, debating whether to hold off and aim for Gold, as soon as Mashouf Wellness Center comes online we will be very close to Gold. We re having difficulty tracking some areas, and one is tracking classes with a sustainability emphasis. Additionally, some ORSP research projects may meet STARS criteria, but tracking has been difficult also. Ron suggested our course catalog should show which classes include sustainability, like at a restaurant, for example, with a green leaf, to show it has a sustainable component to it. Currently some classes have an ES designation, but we need to encourage faculty to apply for an overlay, because some may be applicable, but they slip through the rating, It s up to faculty to label them, and apply for this ES designation, because the overlays are separate they (now called SF State Studies ) can apply either towards General Ed or the Major, but we want to see more of these classes. Interim Provost Summit suggested we reach out to faculty to support this. She suggested Caitlin contact Catrina Esquival in Undergrad Education, someone in Academic Planning, or go straight to Lori Beth Way she can send you to the right person to talk to. David Smith said he knows of some people to contact as well. 2

3 With regards to more research projects in sustainability, Interim Provost Summit mentioned said she hosts an annual student research competition across all disciplines where students can submit and present their research, with a check list of what categories it covers. Perhaps using that mechanism, we find a way to check off a box if they include sustainability. Summit suggested we talk with Michael Scott in ORSP as he is interested in developing more student research, to encourage more research in sustainability. Perhaps bringing a CSU research competition to campus in the future. ORSP would also be a good place to look for any related faculty research. College of Business might capture any faculty research used for accreditation that may also apply. There is a database that can be searched by terms to see which faculty members may be doing any research in this area. Perhaps a cover sheet can be developed to include do you want your proposal to be noted when we tally environmental studies projects, so they can self-nominate their research project. Water usage has been difficult to track as well. We implemented smart water meters in housing and we use recycled water for irrigation, but we don t have water meters in most of our buildings on campus. Even with the bioswales if we have no way or documenting its effectiveness, even having such an amazing program does not help in terms of tracking. Ron asked about using the city s recycled water for our campus. Tom Lollini explained options outlined in a recent memo. Ron suggested bringing a proposal to next meeting. Tom mentioned difficult finding ways to track info in aging facilities. Jill mentioned while LEED is for new buildings, there are other rating systems that may be more application for our aging buildings STARS assigns a point for providing an assessment of a student s knowledge of sustainability when they enter our university and reassessment upon exit to measure what was learned. Tom mentioned it might be good to introduce sustainability at student orientations, to get early buy in from the students. Tyler said the resident students have team meetings in housing, and all new students have to submit a module that goes over basic policies including Title IX. To have the module implement sustainability, we might have to get clearance from SAEM and then ITS to help implement. Ron supports this request. Tyler to follow up with SAEM to see what the process would be. Nick said there s a public engagement assessment in STARS also, and although we do well with public engagement, we need to do better with employee engagement. Perhaps a peer to peer employee training or a class at Employee University can offer sustainability training. Also making it part of our HR s on-boarding process. Nick mentioned we also scored low on the Innovation section we need more ideas, and he suggested we add what foundation board is doing with the carbon footprint of investments. 3

4 Michael Yang has been helping document the STARS food section and we may get a full score because we used Sodexo for tracking purchasing. Next, we need to start working with the food vendors with UCorp to collect metrics of what they purchase. Interim Provost Summit asked why our Wellbeing at Work score so low? Jill explained due to inability to survey/track, and possibly adopting the JUST survey for our campus can bring up that score. Addressing Food Insecurity at SF State (Aimee Williams and Michael Yang) Aimee mentioned many of our students are experiencing some level of hunger and homelessness. Whether they have high food security, low food security, marginal food security, students require their basic needs met in order for them to learn. The Farmer s market is beginning to accept Calfresh. DISCUSSION: Committee Goals for 2016/2017 Committee goals (Ron Cortez) As a committee, we should review what we set out to accomplish last year, and what we actually achieved, so it feels like were moving forward What are our goals for 2016/2017? We should set goals 3-5 years in advance and follow a sustainability plan for the campus that ties into the budget The Office of Sustainability has its programmatic work and is using this time to set other goals, so we are creating a Sustainability Task Force, that will be a working group between the quarterly meetings and will help push goals forward. This committee should set the big picture goals and frame out the projects to assign to the smaller Task Force, and bring in experts when needed If committee members have ideas for goal suggestions, please Caitlin ACTION ITEMS: Caitlin to review 2015/2016 goals to review what was achieved, what can be pushed to 2016/2017. Will bring to next meeting with recommended list of 2016/2017 goals. Anyone who has ideas for new goals please to Caitlin. Sustainability Taskforce to form in order to tackle achievable projects. Nancy to bring update to next meeting for assigning projects. Nick proposed the Committee support ways to capture AASHE STARS. Bring suggestions to next meeting for action. Tyler to contact ResLife about process of adding sustainability to resident student module. Task Force to assist. 4

5 Tom Lollini to bring recycled water option/proposal to next meet for action. Rachelle has inquired at HR to add sustainability to on-boarding and will follow up. Task Force to find out how to add sustainability to SAEM student tours/presentations. Caitlin to contact faculty as advised by Interim Provost Summit and David Smith to find out how to have classes that include sustainability denoted with a symbol Caitlin to contact Michael Scott in ORSP re: student research in sustainability and cover sheet for tracking research projects Next meeting January. REVISED: next meeting December 8, 2016, 10:30am in ADM 201 5